Catherine Shu

Catherine Shu is a TechCrunch writer. She started her career in New York City at the Wall Street Journal Online and Barron's Online before moving to Asia. After studying Mandarin Chinese, Catherine put her language skills to the test by covering the design industry, entrepreneurship, and culture in Taiwan's capital for the Taipei Times. Her other journalism experience includes an investigative reporting internship at the Village Voice and numerous freelance writing gigs. Catherine graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She can be reached at shu@techcrunch.com or @catherineshu on Twitter.

Latest from Catherine Shu

Alibaba Group’s announcement yesterday that it will launch a non-profit NTD $10 billion ($316 million) fund for entrepreneurs in Taiwan was overshadowed by a government investigation into its local operations. During a speech today at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma briefly acknowledged the situation. Read More

Berlin-based Rocket Internet is broadening its already wide portfolio of companies with Everjobs, a career-listings platform. Like other Rocket Internet companies, Everjobs, which is already live in Sri Lanka, will tackle emerging markets in Asia and Africa and plans to expand rapidly.
Everjobs co-founder Ronald Schuurs says Rocket Internet decided to take on job listings after the success of… Read More

A post written by ISIS supporters has emerged, threatening Twitter employees with death because the microblogging platform deletes accounts related to the terrorist group. Uploaded onto JustPaste.it, the post specifically targets Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, with crosshairs superimposed over a photo of his face. Read More

Anyone who has worked a retail job knows what a pain it is to take time off. You usually have to find someone to cover your shift and, unless you’ve managed to arrange your schedule in advance, that often entails panicked texts and phone calls to co-workers. A new startup called Shift Messenger wants to make the process less painful.
Backed by Y Combinator, Shift Messenger was founded… Read More

An Indian startup called Grofers wants to help local shops take advantage of the e-commerce boom by not only providing them with a mobile platform for their inventory, but also facilitating on-demand delivery within 90 minutes. The startup just got a vote of confidence in the form of a $10 million series A round led by Sequoia Capital (a returning investor) and Tiger Global. Read More

With its extremely high smartphone penetration rate, speedy broadband connections, and advanced economy, South Korea is one of the richest breeding grounds for tech innovation in Asia. 500 Startups, which has already made several investments in Korean companies, is digging deeper into the country with the launch of 500 Kimchi, a $15 million fund that will focus on mobile companies. Read More

Math can be fun, but try telling that to a small child stuck behind a desk doing endless drills and worksheets. Founded by a former game developer, startup LocoMotive Labs’ mission is to make learning mathematic basics entertaining for all children, no matter their learning styles. Read More

India may be Asia’s fastest-growing smartphone market, but shipments slowed down last quarter for the first time. According to IDC, the quarter-over-quarter lag was caused by a surplus of inventory leftover after India’s festive season in October and November. Read More

After several years of stagnant growth, India’s housing market is set for a recovery that may create new opportunities for startups. One of those companies is HomeLane, which just raised a $4.5 million series A led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Aarin Capital. Read More

Created by a dad and baby product store owner, Wishbone is a smart thermometer designed to make the fiddly process of taking a baby’s temperature easier. With about a week left to go in its Kickstarter campaign, Wishbone has raised more than $140,000, blowing past its $20,000 goal. Read More

Xiaomi has taken the top spot in China’s smartphone market away from Samsung, says a new report by research firm IDC. Thanks to strong year-over-year growth in Q4 2014 smartphone shipments, Xiaomi achieved a market share of 12.5 percent in 2014, up significantly from 5.3 percent in 2013. Samsung’s share, meanwhile, dropped to 12.1 percent from 18.7 percent. Read More

Oneflare, a local services directory based in Sydney, Australia, announced today that it has acquired WOMO, which claims to be the country’s largest customer reviews site. The amount of the deal was undisclosed. Read More

Consulting and IT services provider Infosys announced today that it will acquire Panaya, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software company. Worth an enterprise value of about $200 million, the deal is expected to close by the end of March. Read More

Uber‘s China aspirations may hit a huge roadblock. Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache, the country’s two biggest taxi-calling apps, are reportedly considering a merger. The Wall Street Journal reports that discussions are “advanced,” but still need the approval of each company’s main investors.
One of Kuaidi Dache’s lead investors is e-commerce leader Alibaba… Read More

Alibaba is best-known as an e-commerce company, but it aspires to be much more. Some of its initiatives, including affiliate Ant Financial, have been very successful. Others, like its operating system Aliyun and mobile messaging app Laiwang, have yet to take off. Alibaba is continuing to build its portfolio of software services, however, with DingTalk, a collaboration and messaging app for… Read More

Just three days after launching a $42 million fund, Line has announced its first investment. LINE Life Global Gateway Fund is putting an undisclosed amount of money into 3Minute, a Japanese online video production startup. Read More

Alibaba marketplace Taobao will celebrate Valentine’s Day by sending gay couples to the U.S. and other countries where same-sex marriage is legal. To be sure, the event, We Do, is a publicity ploy like Alibaba’s recently announced drone pilot program. We Do, however, is much more notable because it is unusual for a Chinese company to publicly support gay rights. Read More